


Arrow To The...

by PurpleMoon3



Series: Bite Sized Bits of Fic [12]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Dresden Files - All Media Types
Genre: Dragonborn!Harry, Drinker-of-Flagons, Friendly Fire is On, Gen, Parental!Lydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2018-11-14 07:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: Parents all across Skyrim know the futility of stopping children from bringing strange animals home, and though the Dragonborn is her thane and not her child Lydia feels that same dragging dread.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the prompt: Any fandom with a dog, Human + dog, begging the dog's forgiveness for stepping on its paw

“B-!” Lydia heard her thane's shout as though it was right next to her ear, loud and panicked and familiar. The voice of a Dragonborn. Lowering Dawnbreaker from where she had braced from the last vampire's explosive death, the Whiterun native checked her own armor for signs of fracture or failure. Finding none, Lydia sheathed the sword and sought our her thane. She had to navigate around a scorched pillar and several twice-dead bodies before spotting his crouched form.

Surprisingly, her thane was not stripping valubles from their slain foes. Her thane's face was twisted in horror, and Lydia's hand went to the pommel of the gifted blade out of reflex, but, no there were no new enemies to fight. There was just-

“You shot me!” Barbas accused with a mulish whine, and Lydia snorted at the arrow sticking out of the daedric beast's ass. She never complained so much even when Dresden had accidentlly hit her with Sparks. Sure, he'd later given her the Staff for her own use as apology -gave her most enchanted weapons, actually- but the point was one did not fight with a Dragonborn. One fought around him.

She shuddered to think what any of the Companions would do if his lack of team coordination ended up sending a stray shot at one of _them._

“I'm sorry!” The Dragonborn blubbered, gaunleted hands shaking as he patted Barbas' furry rump and started to extract the arrow. “Stars-! I'm so sorry. It was just, and you were-! FUCK.”

“Woe! Woe unto me! Betrayed!” The beast wailed in his strange accent, yipping a little as Dresden removed the iron tip from his shaggy hide. One hand was desperatly trying to thumb off the plug of one of their very precious healing potions. Dresden could barely cast a novice healing spell, let alone keep one up for longer than five seconds. 

“It is your ownself to blame!” Lydia could not stop the chastisement that tumbled from her mouth, disrespectful. She steeled herself against the despairing look and cry of her own name that her thane shot her. “I told you. _I told you._ But, no, for all your immortality you are as stupid as any other dumb beast!” 

She nodded, firm, but kept one hand light on Dawnbreaker. If the creature shed his coat there was a slim chance the artifact of another Daedra would slow it down long enough for her thane to escape. 

“Immortal?” Brown eyes blinked at her, and Lydia was again reminded that for all his strength and the soul residing within the Dragonborn was yet a young man. A very young man. 

Gently, she said, “Check the arrow head, my thane, is there blood?”

“It still hurts, ya know.” The beast complained.

The boy glanced at the ruined arrow he'd tossed aside, but as she expected it was clean if a little dulled and cracked. Barbas yelped again as the Dragonborn grabbed it by the hips and practically buried his face in the fur as he searched for an absent wound. Slowly, the grab turned into a hug as her charge lay down in the ash and muck of the abandoned grotto. Barbas' eyes had closed in pleasure as Dresden's fingers expertly scratched behind his ears. 

Lydia did not like the look of consideration that was filling a normally guileless face. She cleared her throat. “Shall we press on, my thane? The axe?”

“...Justin never let us have pets...”

Dammit.


	2. A Dream Is A Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fill For: [Any, any, "Yeah, well you're my kid now, and anyone who wants to get to you gets to go through me first."](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/888551.html?thread=106659815#t106659815)

It was the same dream as always, but Sissel didn't mind. She flew on gusts of air, a fire that kept her warm and kept her aloft rumbling in her belly, and speed toward the tallest peak on the tallest mountain. She knew it as all sons and daughters of Skyrim knew it. The Throat of the World. She landed with an inelegant tumble, laughing as she rolled along the cold earth until her dream-self bumped against a wall of heat.  
  
Sissel lay on the ground grinning, and it didn't hurt, and there was no Britte to push her around or Lemkil to slap the smile off her useless face.  
  
“None of that now, little one...” The big gray dragon rumbled softly in a language more suited for the shouts her family preferred. But she liked it. She liked him. Sissel curled up at the dragon's feet placed her bruised cheek on knuckle -were they called knuckles, if they were on dragons- the size of her head and closed her eyes in safety and contentment.  
  
She woke screaming.  
  
“Useless!” Her dad snarled, face twisted into a rage as he hauled her up by her hair. The straw of her temporary shelter scratched at her skin through the thin fabric of her dress, and the feeling of peace she'd had in the dream evaporated like yesterday's tears as her sister perched on the low, stone wall smirking. Dad marched across the yard, his fingers still tight in her hair, and Sissel could barely keep her feet under her. “Absolutely useless! Sleeping the day away! Hiding like some, some third rate _mage_ .”  
  
“I-I'm sorry! Daddy, p-please! I did my chores! I d-did!” Sissel pleaded, small hands wrapping around his thick wrist in vain hopes of relieving some of the pain in her scalp. If she had a small dagger like Braith she could cut her hair and run, run and run and run all the way to the top of the mountain where the Greybeards lived. And maybe there were no nice dragons outside of her dream but with her hair shorn she could pretend to be a boy and maybe- “N-no! Please, daddy!”  
  
Lemkil stepped out of the garden, headed for the house, dragging his screaming daughter all the way. Sissel's eyes widened in terror. The _worst_ beatings happened in the cellar.  
  
“Don't you 'please' me. There's beetles all over the potato stalks! Clearly, what little virtues your good-for-nothing mother passed on all went to Britte.”  
  
Britte. Sissel's eyes rolled to her sister as she struggled in earnest, heels digging into the earth, and for a moment the fear and pain was overcome with anger. Sissel had done her job. She'd shook the potato stalks and caught the beetles that would eat them, storing the pests away to be sold for spell components and fertilizer. Then she'd hid before her sister could finish _her_ chores and the other girl was so _bitter_ about it Britte had released the beetles back into the garden.  
  
“NO!” Sissel screamed, _shouted_ , cheeks flushed with self-rightous anger as _something_ burst from her body causing her dad to stumble. Lemkil's grip on her hair loosened as he caught himself, falling to one knee, and Sissel dragged herself backward's as a sudden expidenture of emotion leeched strength from her limbs. “ ...no... ”  
  
Lemkil's face twisted as he stood up, towering over her, fists clenched. “You lazy, useless, disrespectful _witch_ . I'm going to _beat_ some manners into-”  
  
“ _ **FUS RO DAH!** _ ”  
  
The shout was something that echoed down in Sissel's bones as a sudden gust made her skirt billow and her nose tickle. She stared in shock at the empty space her dad had loomed only moments ago. Where was-? What had-?  
  
“H-Hey, are you okay?” Someone was speaking to her. She turned her head and felt her insides turn to jelly. She'd never met him, and dressed in a simple armor of leathers he didn't _appear_ nearly as terrifying as his reputation suggested. He didn't look much older than _Erik_ was. But there was Lydia of Whiterun, sheathing the Sword that Bears the Sun, and there was the War-Dog that Will Not Fucking Die.  
  
Which meant that the dark haired man next to her, shuffling on his feet, was Ennis' goat thief. Speaker-to-Giants. Bandit Bane. Defiler of Dibella. Sissel gulped, and pointed at the man with a delirious exclamation of, “Drinker of Flagons!”

Regret squeezed her heart like a vice as her mouth gaped in horror.  
  
The dragonborn's eyes rolled heavenward as he lamented, “By the Stars! It was one night. One. Night.”  
  
“That's what happens when you go drinking without your housecarl.” Lydia sniped as she came to a stop beside her dragonborn. With the two of them, and the beast, and neither her dad or her sister in sight Sissel began to shake. She began to _cry_. She was going to _die_.  
  
“Hey, hey! Don't cry! What's wrong? I've got some potions here... somewhere...” The dragonborn knelt while patting down his many, many pockets and somehow going from towering terror to playmate. Sissel sniffled as the war-dog drew closer on its master's heels and sniffed her hair, strong inhales causing the dirty blonde strands to rise.  
  
“Uh... is everything alright here, Citizen?” Erik called nervously as he stepped over the low dividing wall wearing the uniform he'd salvaged from the corpse of Rorikstead's guardsman. Whiterun hadn't been able to send replacements, not after the vampires, but the older boy filled the uniform out well enough and no one could see his youth beneath the helm. “....what happened to Lemkil?”  
  
The dragonborn's concerned face didn't look away from Sissel when he answered. “That child beating piece of shit? Don't you worry. I'm Thane. Tell him, Lydia.”  
  
The warrior woman nodded, solemn. “My thane is correct. Everything had been just, and justly done.”  
  
“I see... Sissel?”  
  
Sissel hiccupped. She wasn't going to die? She didn't know where he sister had got to, but she... couldn't say Lemkil's absence was a hardship. “You killed him.”  
  
“Yeah, well. You're my kid now, and anyone who wants to get to you gets to go through me first.” The dragonborn looked away, cheeks burning, and the slight point of his ears reminded her of Jouane before the vampires got him. He said the words and Sissel realized she didn't just _want_ to believe him, but that she _did_.  
  
“Welcome to the family, brat!” The dog howled with a laugh, and Sissel let out an eek.  
  
“It talks!”  
  
“She speaks!” The not-a-dumb beast snarked back.  
  
“ _Its_ name is Barbas.” The dragonborn smiled, hand coming down to scratch the dog behind the ears. “But he should have been named Gossip. Look, um, Lydia and I need to be on the road soon but if you want to go grab some spare clothes or something?”  
  
“I don't. Have spare clothes. Dad didn't-” Sissel didn't like the look that came on the dragonborn's face. She closed her mouth, shook out her hair, and stood with a bright smile on her face. “Where are we going, Papa?”  
  
“I got a little place in Falkreath...”  
  
Lydia's mouth twisted into not quite a grin as Sissel took her new father's hand and the group headed for the Inn and the horses tied outside it. “Explaining this to your wife is not a burden I'm willing to share.”  
  
“Moira will understand, and she needs someone to remind her how human hygiene works, anyway.”  
  
“You said it, D.” Barbas the Talking Immortal Dog chuffed. “Bitch staaaanks.”  
  
“Like someone who regularly rolls in vampire ashes can judge. When we get home it's bath time for _everybeing_.”


End file.
